Or part Siamese. They are very chatty and gossipy and never shut up.

Dude, tell me about it.

(Shut UP, Lucy! JZ is talking now!)

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Jeeves didn't start out chatty, but he's become more vocal as he's gotten older, especially in terms of trying to give me commands. From an early age, though, he always liked to sit in acoustically interesting places and sing scales.

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I skipped quite a bit today, so I might have missed if anybody announced that Arthur Miller died.

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Dude, tell me about it.

(Shut UP, Lucy! JZ is talking now!)

Heh. Despite his frequent irritation with cat persons, Hec does a spectacularly funny and affectionate impersonation of my former cat, the endlessly chatty Matilda. It's incidentally also a spectacularly funny and affectionate impersonation of Erin G if she lived with her gay brother and me and wore a fur coat all the time.

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Stephanie Zacharek in Salon was just saying that her ass looks like it was plucked from God's personal peach orchard.

It's okay.

Her face is even less special.

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Can you go to jail for merely being stupid?

According to prosecutors, Sizemore had been caught once before trying to use a similar device, sold over the Internet under the brand name the Whizzinator, and had failed drug tests on at least five occasions.

But sometimes, it's for the good of society.

She grabbed him by the genitals, tearing off his left testicle, then hid it in her mouth before a friend of Jones handed it back to him saying "that's yours."

Is it bad that I didn't see the word "wife" the first few times round? I thought things might have gone a bit too far.

Stevie Wonder's Wife Debuts Clothing Line

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amych, I am sure you will get a COLA this year. The thing is, if you leave the job market for 5 or 10 years, no matter what you are doing, you almost never hit the career salary high you would have had. In many cases, your skills are outdated or people are suspicious of the gap in employment and you end up with a lower salary than you had when you left.

Did I mention we paid more than $10K in child care this year? It fucking kills me. O for a socialist state.

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She hid the testicle in her mouth. I just...

I especially loved the Reuters headline: Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

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the second spouse's job actually cost the family money, when everything was taken into consideration (higher tax bracket, take out food, dry cleaning, commuting costs, baby sitting costs, workplace gifts and parties, lunches out)

Doesn't that really depend on the second spouse? Workplace gifts and parties, lunches out and take out food, and dry cleaning are by no means mandatory.

Oh yeah. That's one of the reasons I mentioned sitting down with an accountant to take a look at what's left of the check, after all the work related expenses are considered. It would vary from family to family, and with income, with how much over salary #1 is required to meet expenses, and also with the reasons why people are working.

YOU CANT AVOID THE GIRLSCOUT COOKIE MAFIA!

I accidentally avoided them, this year. I didn't mean to though, and now I am sad, and will not have Thin Mints and Peanut Butter Patties. Very sad.

Jilli, that 'made with real Girl Scouts' line would have made me buy the girl out. That's an unfair use of cuteness.

People who do that math always forget to take into effect retirement for the second spouse, in particular your salary basis for Social Security and your 401(K). Not to mention forgetting to take into effect that salaries normally compound, getting a little higher each year, so losing (for example) 5 years of salary raises can make a significant dent in your lifetime income.

There are all kinds of considerations, which is why you talk to an accountant (unless you're an actuary or married to one).

Absolutely. Working with a new baby is expensive. I just get frustrated when people say that therefore it's a slam-dunk to stay home. Staying home with a new baby is also expensive.

For the record, I wasn't saying anything of the kind, or anything more than it's not a bad idea to talk with an accountant, if one is in your future, anyhow. It's not a slam-dunk by any means. First of all, it's not what some people want to do. Secondly, usually it's not going to be a case of work costing you money--that was an extreme case that made good TV. But sometimes, it's a case of you both working outside the home, 40+ hours a week each, for a net gain that isn't financially worth it to you.

Hrrmph. I wear black to work every day, and nobody quotes the Addams Family or sells me Thin Mints!

When Julia sells them next year (Daisies don't sell them apparently, which is why I missed out--I was waiting for her to get the selling kit), I will send you some for free, and a picture of her in her Vampyrella costume from last year.

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Layla is the cutest dog under 40 lbs that I've ever seen. She's like a little mini BearDog without the crabbiness.

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